On politicians, bureaucrats and the punditry
From an entertaining article in Vanity Fair about the financial debacle in Iceland:
After three days in Reykjavík, I receive, more or less out of the blue, two phone calls. The first is from a producer of a leading current-events TV show. All of Iceland watches her show, she says, then asks if I’d come on and be interviewed. ‘About what?’ I ask. ‘We’d like you to explain our financial crisis,’ she says. ‘I’ve only been here three days!’ I say. It doesn’t matter, she says, as no one in Iceland understands what’s happened. They’d enjoy hearing someone try to explain it, even if that person didn’t have any idea what he was talking about—which goes to show, I suppose, that not everything in Iceland is different from other places. As I demur, another call comes, ….
No, not all that different at all.